I guess it's official. Enhanced Interrogation methods were used.

[The Backlash Cometh]

One unwary phone call led US to bin Laden doorstep

The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.

"We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day," said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.

Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.

It took years of work for intelligence agencies to identify the courier's real name, which officials are not disclosing. When they did identify him, he was nowhere to be found. The CIA's sources didn't know where he was hiding. Bin Laden was famously insistent that no phones or computers be used near him, so the eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency kept coming up cold.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20110502/030e07d1-3522-44f5-a655-2bbfc203226b

[Scuba]

1. Sounds like the waterboarding failed and more humane methods worked.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Why would someone on DU unrec this article?

Is it because they can't handle the truth? I don't like it either. But it's a fact we need to face up to.

[Solomon]

5. I don't for a moment believe that torture had anything to do

with it. That's all I've been hearing on right wing radio today. It proves the terror was right. There's not a shred of evidence produced to link it directly or too show he wouldn't have been found anyway. I was listening to one host, I won't mention his name, but he was ranting that Obama should have given the credit to Bush, and then he kept going, well, Clinton bombed that factory so he should have mentioned Clinton, and I thought to myself, why not go all the way back to George Washington, for chrissakes, in all the necessary things that "brought us to this point". Sure, the people talking have some credibility, but hell, they are after all, talking about and justifying themselves. Rumsfeld was questioned and he said it was speculation that torture had anything to do with it. Maybe they should have prepped Rumsfeld before the interview.

[Jefferson23]

3. Debate my ass, it is illegal now and it was illegal then. n/t

[lonestarnot]

4. He had a computer in his den.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. They can't get access to it unless he tries to connect with the internet, right?